Where's Andrew

SALENTO, SAN AGUSTIN & THE ROAD TO ECUADOR - AUG 21 - 28

Plaza Principal - Salento

It takes 3 buses and a metro ride to get to Salento. I was expecting to take a bus from Medellin all the way to Armenia then catch a bus to Salento. But my bus driver tells me to get off on the middle of the highway and points to the other side of the freeway. I see a bus stop next to an exit that says Salento. So I cross the highway and wait for the bus. Quite a number of buses go bye that aren't bound for Salento before one stops. I ask if it is going to Salento and the bus assistant waves me on. I have to bring my bags on the bus and the bus is very full so it takes a couple of minutes to get settled and the next thing I know the bus has missed the exit ramp and is continuing down the highway. I'm on the wrong bus, by the time I get the driver to stop we have gone about 4kms. I get off and have a nice walk back to the bus stop. Luckily it was down hill and I'm getting used to carrying around 80lbs of stuff. Of course just as I get about 200m away from the bus stop, the Salento bus goes bye and I miss it. I'm just now remembering how fun travel days are.

Main Church at Plaza Principal

Just after I get back to the bus stop, a couple other travellers get dumped off on the other side of the highway like I did. They cross over and join me at the bus stop. They are David from Belgium and Jakub from Poland. Jakub now works in Belgium and they are good friends travelling together through Colombia for about 3 weeks. The bus comes in about 20 minutes and it is so full that we barley fit on. Thankfully it is only a 30 minute drive to Salento because the road is very twisty with lots of hills and it's hard to keep standing in the aisle. David, Jakub and I decide to go to the same hostel, there are rooms available at our 2nd choice called Hostel Tralala and I get a room for about $27US.

Beginning of Cocora Hike

David and Jakub are very friendly, first they invite me to join them for dinner, which ends up being an awesome chicken currie at a nice restaurant, and then they invite me to hike the Cocora valley the next day. The Cocora valley is one of the most popular hikes in Colombia. It is named after the Cocora Palm tree which is unique to Colombia and grows in the mountain highlands more than 2000m above sea level. The next morning we catch a 7:30AM Colectivo (Jeep shared taxi) to the valley. It's an awesome hike that starts off on the valley floor and heads up hill along a stream. The beginning of the trail is in a large meadow that goes up several hundred metres before the forest begins.

Cocora Palm Trees

At the transition point of the meadow and forest is where the majority of the Cocora Palms are and they are much taller than regular palm trees. After climbing out of the meadow and into the forest, the valley narrows dramatically and we cross the stream several times on rickety bridges. After about 2 hours, we come to a real steep ridge that the trail winds up and it takes about 50 minutes to reach the ranger station at the top. The bottom of the valley is at 2500m above sea level and the top of the ridge is at least 3000m above sea level. Hiking up this steep section has made me realize that I'm in much better shape than I was when this trip started but I have a ways to go to be ready for the altitude and steep inclines of the Inca Trail hike.

Milk Delivery to Town on the Cocora Trail

We eat the lunch we brought at the ranger station while enjoying a beautiful view. There are some very colourful humming birds with very long tail feathers enjoying the flowers around the ranger station garden as we eat. We then continue our way along the trail which is now looping back down into the valley. It takes about an hour to get back to the road and the views of the valley along the way are incredible. We catch a Colectivo back to town and are at the hostel by 2:00PM. Jakub and David decide to head out for a bite to eat but I'm not hungry and decide to work getting my Guatape blog posted.

David Waiting to Cross One of Many Bridges

It takes about 3 hours to complete and post my blog and now I'm hungry. I head to a bar/restaurant run by an Australian. It's a small funky place with one large table and I join about 10 travellers and the bar owner for a few drinks. We exchange travel stories for a couple of hours and then I go to order dinner and all they have left is 2 types of currie chicken. After currie the night before, I decide to go somewhere else and so I head to the same restaurant that I was at last night because they had some real nice looking pizzas. I run into Jakub and David there and they are with a Spanish couple we met the night before. They have just had dinner but are kind enough to stick around while I eat then we all go out to a place to play Tijo.

Andrew and the View From the Ranger Station

Tijo is a game a bit like horseshoes. Each player gets a 3lb metal disk about the size of a hockey puck. One side of the disk is tapered slightly to make the disk saucer shaped. There is a long playing area that has a 1.5m square box box angled at a 45 degree angle at either end. Each box is full of a soft clay with a center metal ring about 12 - 15cm in diameter. The clay in the box is flush with the metal ring and is about 15cm deep. The object of the game is to toss your metal disk underhand into this center ring. There are 2 small paper triangles placed on the top and bottom of the metal ring.

Looking Back at the Start of the Valley

These triangles contain gun powder. If the disk you throw hits the triangle and the metal ring, the triangle blows up like a fire cracker. The game is to 21 and a disk in the center ring is worth 6 points, a triangle blowing up is worth 3 and the closest to the center ring is worth 1 point. The locals throw from a distance of 19 metres which is a long way to toss a 3lb disk. When Gringos play, we throw from 9 metres. It is still surprisingly difficult but all my years of pitching softball probably gave me an advantage. There is no cost to play the game except for the drinks you have while playing. We played 2 games and it was lots of fun especially when you hit a triangle.

I say good-bye to everyone that night as I am catching the 6:20AM bus. I'm ready to go in good time that morning but the lock on my door requires a key to get out of the room and the key breaks off in the door even though I barely turned it. The door is unlocked but there is no handle on the inside so I sit and wait until 7:00AM when I finally here someone up and it's the owner and he finally lets me out.

Andrew & Jakob at the Cocora Valley

So, I am on the 7:20AM bus to Armenia and then I take a bus to Cali but I have missed the only bus to San Agustin where I want to go. I decide to catch another bus to Popayan which gets me closer to San Agustin but I don't think there is a bus there that afternoon and will need to stay the night in Popayan.

The bus to Popayan is a minivan with 9 passengers and the driver. The good thing is we are full so there are no stops and what normally is a 3 hour bus ride takes just over 2 and my luck that day is changing. I am sitting next to a friendly young woman named Leijabe (pronounced Lahevy) who happens to be travelling to Pitalito which is a town 40 minutes from San Agustin. She is very nice and speaks about as much English as I do Spanish and is probably in her late twenties. I tell her I want to go to San Agustin and could I travel with her as far as Pitalito and she says no problem. We get to Popayan around 1:30PM and the bus to Pitalito is scheduled to leave at 4:30PM but it is running late and it will not leave until 6:00PM. So Leijabe and I buy our tickets and decide to go get something to eat. We have a nice meal and try and have a conversation. My Spanish-English dictionary comes out quite a bit but after some struggles we actually find out quite a bit about each other. She is separated from her husband and is a Physical Therapist and is returning home after some training course in Cali. She has a daughter who is turning 3 today but she is in Bogota visiting her father. She lives just outside of town with her mother, father and daughter.

Plaza Principal - San Agustin

Finally the bus is ready to leave. It should take 5 hours to get there and I will stay the night and take a short 40 minute bus to San Agustin in the morning. Once again the bus is packed and Leijabe and I are in the last row of seats. The road to Pitalito is a winding mountain gravel road that is under construction pretty much the whole way making this the worst bus ride I been on so far this whole trip. We slowly bounce our way there and finally arrive an hour late at midnight. Leijabe and I spent over 12 hours together and I really enjoyed getting to know her. The Spanish lessons definitely helped but we ran out of things that we could say pretty quickly and it just reinforced how much I still need to improve my Spanish. We exchange email addresses. I plan to send her a message in Spanish thanking her for all of her help and her company on a long day's travel.

San Agustin

I get a cheap hotel right next to the bus station for the night and catch a late morning shuttle to San Agustin. I was a bit tired after my 17 hours of travelling the day before and I have woken up with a cold. It's raining all the way to San Agustin. San Agustin is a town of about 3 or 4 thousand people. It is a working town in an area where sugar cane and coffee is grown. This region has a much larger indigenous population than the rest of Colombia. I find a room for $15US in Hostel Diosa Lunar and book a Jeep Tour for $22US the next day mainly because I fear my cold is getting worse. Three kilometres out of town is the Parque Arqueologico or Valley of the Statues with a 2.5 hour hike with tombs and stone heads all along the walk. The stone heads were actually buried in the underground tombs but they have been placed above ground next to the tombs so visitor's can see them.

Checking Out the Rapids on the Jeep Tour

Unfortunately the rain never lets up and I just don't feel like getting wet for a couple hours on this hike with my cold. So I spend the afternoon watching videos on my tablet. I found a free website with TV shows like Game of Thrones, Falling Skies, Big Bang Theory, The Killing and I've been downloading them to watch on bus trips and in the evenings. I tend to go to bed early and get up early which seems to be the habit of most of the travellers I meet.

The next day my cold is a little worse and the Jeep Tour is exactly the right kind of activity for me. The driver and guide is Christian and there are 2 other travellers from Australia, Ben and Zoey. The drive through the river valleys and mountain hills is beautiful.

There are sugar cane fields everywhere and it seems that the harvest is in process. There is no flat terrain here so everything is done by hand and some of the hills are so steep you could barely walk up them. It must be exhausting work. We stop at a small town that has several tombs in the center square that we check out. They have poured concrete into the excavations to keep the side walls from collapsing and then painted the concrete an institutional yellow colour. The stone head carvings have been removed so its not a very impressive exhibit. Hopefully the rest of the tour gets better.

We drive another hour or so and come to a small park. We order some lunch at a nearby restaurant and then go for a 45 minute walking tour of 20 or so tombs. They have been excavated but left intact with the stone heads in place. The heads were supposed to ward off evil spirits and potential grave robbers. It might have worked for the evil spirits but all the graves were robbed of valuables such as jewelry and pottery in the early 1900s. The head carvings are very impressive and detailed but not much is know about the pre-Columbus people who made them from about 300BC to the time of the Spanish conquest.

After lunch, we continue on for another hour before coming to a smaller park with about 10 tombs. It is very similar to the previous park and takes about 15 minutes to walk. The weather is still not that great with intermittent showers the whole day.

We then go see the longest water fall in Colombia, Salto de Bordones near the town of Bordones. The water falls for over 400m and the volume of water is very impressive. When we get there, there is low mist all around the falls and within 10 minutes of arriving, the falls are completely obscured by the mist. Another 40 minute drive and we are at the last waterfall,

Salto de Bortones

Salto de Mortino, which is the second longest in Colombia at over 170m. It does not have anywhere near the same volume of water but is still very beautiful. Another 40 minutes of driving and we are back to San Agustin. Zoey and Ben tell me that the tombs we saw are much more impressive than anything I will see in the park near town so I decide if the weather is not nice in the morning, I will just get a bus back to Popayan on my way to the Ecuador boarder.

The next morning it is still raining. I'm all packed up and ready to leave so I catch the 8:30AM bus to Popayan. I was planning on continuing south as far as Pasto but we do not arrive into Popayan until a little after 2:00PM and the next bus leaves at 3:00PM and takes 6 hours. Popayan seems just like another big city but I had heard that it has a very nice colonial Spanish city centre. In fact it is supposed to be one of the nicest in South America and with my cold I'm not up to another long day on the bus so I decide to stay the night and tour the old city. I get a room at Hostel Trail Guesthouse for a little less than $15US.

Plaza Principal - Popayan

The Plaza Principal is beautiful; all the building in the plaza and the surrounding streets are a white washed plaster and everything is so clean and crisp. The streets are just bustling with people and there are lots of shops, cafes and restaurants. I can't help but notice a nice looking Chinese restaurant. I have been craving Chinese food for quite a while and go there for dinner. I order a combo plate with Chow Mein, Chop Suey and Sweet & Sour Chicken. The Chow Mein is 99% rice and 1% noodle, the chicken is three balls the size of golf balls and about as hard too and the sauce is just too sweet; how disappointing. The Chop Suey is good though. I have an early night as I am still nursing my cold but set my alarm early for 5:30AM.

Plaza Principal - Popayan

I'm all packed the night before and I am out the door by 5:40AM to catch the 6:00AM bus to Pasto and then on to Ipiales. I get to the bus station with about 5 minutes to spare and buy my ticket and wait the next 45 minutes for the bus to leave. Finally we are on the road, it is supposed to take 6 hours to get to Pasto and another 2 hours to Ipiales which is right at the Ecuador boarder. I want to try and cross the boarder and go about 4 hours to Otavalo where I will spend a couple of days before continuing to Quito. But the bus is an hour late getting to Pasto and waits another 40 minutes before continuing on to Ipiales so we don't arrive until almost 4:00PM. I'm guessing crossing the boarder will take another hour too, so I once again decide to stay the night instead of continuing on.

Plaza Principal - Ipiales

Ipiales is quite a big city and it is not as nice, clean or as modern as the other cities in Colombia. The area is also supposed to still be a bit sketchy with a few remaining rebels in the area, which probably explains the much larger police and military presence throughout the city compared to the rest of Colombia. It reminds me of being back in Guatemala, Honduras or El Salvador. Night buses are not recommended as hold ups are quite frequent and I'm quickly warned by some locals not to stray out of the city centre where I have gotten a room for the night at Hotel Emperador for just under $10US. I spend another quite evening but I can't believe how cold it is here. I'm up in the mountains but I'm not sure of the elevation (I think it's around 3000m) but the temperature is probably about 6C that night and my room has no heating. I sleep in a T-shirt, a long sleeved shirt, socks and my jeans as the bedding is not very warm. I'm still a little cold which I don't think has happened since I left Vancouver. I must admit the Salento, San Agustin and Popayan where quite cool as well and the only time I've worn shorts in the last few days was on my hike of the Cocora Valley.

Downtown Ipiales

The next morning I leave the hotel just after 8:00AM and catch a taxi to the frontera (boarder). After getting my exit stamp from Colombia Immigration, I find a money exchanger to sell the last of my Colombian Pesos. Ecuador uses US dollars which will make it simple when buying stuff. I have $224,000 Pesos and the best exchange I can find is 1850:1 which is pretty good, the guys with the best exchange even have a calculator to make it simple. But the bastards have done something to the calculator and even though I watch them punch in the numbers, the calculator displays a figure of around $92.50US. I've already calculated it in my head and know that it should be around $120US. The one guy has my money because he wanted to count it, the discussion starts to get a little heated until I pull out my tablet and go to the calculator application and do the math and show them the result. Then they are suddenly very apologetic and just blame it on a defective calculator. I'm really tempted to smash their calculator but decide an escalation of this situation at the boarder in front of lots of military would serve me no benefit so I just head across the boarder glad that I caught this trick and can't help but wonder if it has happened before without me noticing.

It's been a great 6 weeks in Colombia. I can't help but think I came at a perfect time. The country is now one of the safest places to travel in this region but the reputation of Pablo Escobar, the drug cartels and rebels in the rural areas lives on. Travellers are just starting to come in significant numbers but the Colombian people seem to embrace all tourists. I'm sure the volume of tourists will explode in the next couple of years and the attitude of the local people will probably change too. I have also met so many great people like everyone on the sailboat trip from Panama, my pals at the Lake View Hostal and David and Jakob in Salento. The whole country is beautiful with so much diversity. I did not even make it to any of the southern lowlands that are part of the Amazon basin. So far, if I was to recommend only 1 country to visit, Colombia would be it by far. It is even pretty reasonably priced compared to other countries I've been to. I'm pretty sure I will come back here someday to see some of the things I've missed like Bogota and the Amazon and also to see some of the places I liked best like Guatape.

I'm excited about Ecuador and finally crossing the equator. It seems like I have travelled so far already but the distances involved in getting from Ecuador to Tierra del Fuego are almost mind boggling. To put it in perspective, it would be a similar distance if I turned around right now and travelled north to Alaska only the roads are no where near as good down here. My days of sitting on a bus are just really getting started and I wonder what cool places I will find next. I plan on being in Ecuador for about a month before going to Peru for around 5 weeks, then into Bolivia for 5 weeks and then on to Chile. In a couple of weeks I will have been travelling for 6 months but it only seems like I left Vancouver last week.

I forgot to mention in my last post about Guatape that I got my haircut and once again it was an interesting experience. As per usual, I did not want my hair cut too short and was very surprised when the barber decided to use an electric razor with a number 8 attachment, no one ever cuts my hair this way. The best I can say is that my hair kind of looks like how Kevin Costner's did in the movie The Bodyguard.

Adios Colombia y hola Ecuador.